Cheat and Charmer

I'll just come out and say that I thoroughly enjoyed Cheat and Charmer, to the tune of 550 pages in three days (OK, so I spent two of those days sick in bed) and staying up till 4 in the morning to finish it (uh, not such a good idea after two days sick in bed). I get the mixed reviews, but hey, this novel has sister rivalry, sister love, Hollywood, Communists, Paris, London, writers, sex, betrayal, beaches, swimming pools, and melodrama, all wrapped up in the 1950s. If you liked Jill Robinson's Bed/Time/Story or have a secret yen for Irwin Shaw, by all means pick up this one. The story of nice girl Dinah Milligan Lasker and her glamorous younger sister, Veevi Milligan Ventura Albrecht; of their Communist pasts and the consequences of their encounters with the House Un-American Activities Committee; of Dinah's husband Jake's escapades at Marathon Pictures, in Paris, and in bed; of Veevi's first husband, Bulgarian filmmaker Stefan Ventura, and her second, novelist Mike Albrecht, and all her men before, betwixt, and after; of...oh, hell, either you are ready to get it already or you're already bored. If this is a novel for you, you know who you are.